The word "incunabula" is Latin, a neuter plural meaning "swaddling clothes" or "cradle." In book history, it is used to refer to all books printed with metal type from the beginning of Gutenberg's movable type printing press, around 1455, to the end of 1500. This is an arbitrary but traditional date that marks the end of the "infancy" of printing, as it rapidly spread to centers across Europe and into the Americas. Known as "incunables" in Spanish and French (and often in English), "incunaboli" in Italian, and "incunábulos" in Portuguese, these earliest of printed books have long been of great interest to librarians, book collectors, and historians of the book.
What Are Incunabula?, The University of Chicago Library
Instrument with volvelles from Regiomontanus: Kalendarium by University of Glasgow Library
Via Flickr:
Regiomontanus, Joannes: Kalendarium. Venice: Erhardus Ratdolt, 1482. An instrument with volvelles, or paper wheels, which can be manipulated to show the motion of the moon ([29v]). Sp Coll BD7-f.13 (item 1 of 4 bound together).
oh hello! This little hand-drawn fish is half of the pisces constellation, as seen printed here in the first book to contain printed illustrations of the constellations (1485 edition).
This week we present The Highest Form of Flattery by Adrian Wilson and Joyce Lancaster Wilson, with a leaf from the 1497 edition of the pirated Nuremberg Chronicle printed at Augsburg. The book is the first fine press book by the Cowell Press at the University of Santa Cruz, printed in 1982 in an edition of 90 copies. The text was set by the Mackenzie-Harris Corporation of San Francisco, and it was printed on Curtis Rag paper. Presswork by Felicia Rice, Sherwood Grover, and Nick Zachreson. The book includes a history of the Cowell Press written by the Provost of Cowell College, John Dizikes. Adrian Wilson and Joyce Lancaster Wilson wrote a history of Johann Schönsperger’s Augsburg Edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle.
The original Nuremberg Chronicle written by Hartmann Schedel was first published by Anton Koberger in 1493 in Latin, and a German edition was printed six months later. The folios included 1,800 woodcut illustrations printed from 645 different blocks designed by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff.
Adrian Wilson and Joyce Lancaster Wilson wrote:
“Three years after the Koberger editions were published they received the highest form of flattery, plagiarism. Johann Schönsperger of Augsburg issued a small folio edition of the German translation, with 2,100 new woodcuts reduced in size to fit the smaller pages, but copied roughly from the Koberger blocks. The success of the pirated edition so encouraged Schönsperger that he printed a Latin edition in 1497 and followed it with another German reprint in 1500. The editions must have been much smaller than the Nuremberg ones and copies are even rarer today.”
This book is another wonderful gift from our friend, Jerry Buff.
Jozef Van Wissem — New Lute Music for Film (Incunabulum)
(Photo by Renaud Monfourny)
NEW LUTE MUSIC FOR FILM by JOZEF VAN WISSEM
In recent years things have ramped up for lutenist Jozef Van Wissem. He’s grown his audience in Eastern Europe to the point where he keeps a residence in Poland. There have been cinematic and sonic collaborations with Domingo Garcia-Huidobro, Zola Jesus and Jim Jarmusch, and business dalliances with ATP Recordings, Sacred Bones, Crammed Discs and Consouling Sounds. But for this concert recording, made early in 2017 at the Meet Factory in Prague, Van Wissem is back to releasing his music on his own Incunabulum imprint.
It never hurts to be able to fall back on your own resources, and this record wears its practicality quite literally on its sleeve. New Lute Music For Film sets you up with a few tunes from Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive that didn’t make it to the soundtrack CD, while its subtitle — Beyond Props — not only advertises Van Wissem’s availability to make more movie music, it tells you want kind of projects he wants. Having not only played on Only Lovers Left Alive soundtrack but also schooled actor Tom Hiddleston in lute technique, he wants to be more than a prop. If you’ll pardon the metaphorical shift, Van Wissem’s music is strong enough to be a main ingredient, not just a spice.
The album catalogs his current strengths. It opens with a four-piece, fifteen and a half minute long sequence (billed as four separate tracks on the CD’s sleeve but correctly identified on the record’s Bandcamp page) that shows how years of road dogging have elevated his technique. His tone has never projected more boldly, and his dissonances have never been more pungent. He’s never walked the rigorous stair-steps of his palindromic compositions with more ease, and he’s equally sure-footed transitioning from tune to tune. Even his singing, never his strong suit, sounds more confident. It’s worth remembering that Van Wissem was active on Holland’s punk scene before he turned to the lute, and he applies punk’s phlegmy bluntness to lyrics that honor the challenge of being an authentic individual and promote the redemptive power of love.
